


four times asked

by ilia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: But predominately fluff, Depression and alcohol abuse if you squint, M/M, Set during and post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21689161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilia/pseuds/ilia
Summary: The first time Victor asks, they're sitting oceanside, lulled by the sharp smell of low tide and the calling of gulls."Yuri," he says, and it's smooth, but hollow—a certain quality Yuri isn't used to, and he looks up from where he's been inspecting his fingernails. "What do you want me to be to you? A father figure? Brother? Friend? Boyfriend?"Yuri pales until he is the color of the moist sand that has worked into the crevices of his toes. They kicked off their shoes some time back, content to walk barefoot along the beach, Victor dancing patterns into the material and Yuri almost replicating them, a twist of his ankle here and drag of his toe there so that his footprints, too, will carry artistic form to anyone who might happen to see before the foam washes them away.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 12
Kudos: 81





	four times asked

The first time Victor asks, they're sitting oceanside, lulled by the sharp smell of low tide and the calling of gulls.

"Yuri," he says, and it's smooth, but hollow—a certain quality Yuri isn't used to, and he looks up from where he's been inspecting his fingernails. "What do you want me to be to you? A father figure? Brother? Friend? Boyfriend?"

Yuri pales until he is the color of the moist sand that has worked into the crevices of his toes. They kicked off their shoes some time back, content to walk barefoot along the beach, Victor dancing patterns into the material and Yuri almost replicating them, a twist of his ankle here and drag of his toe there so that his footprints, too, will carry artistic form to anyone who might happen to see before the foam washes them away.

He can't hope to catch up to Victor, and he doesn't try—the days are shortening, and the sea's salty chill creeps down his collar and shocks the delicate flesh underneath, and sometimes Yuri is content just to exist in the same place as Victor at all. To observe the way the wind touches the silver hair that rests just above Victor's lashes and catches the blue of his eyes underneath.

Sometimes, Yuri feels as though he can't just reach out and touch, that Victor is hovering, catlike, just beyond the grasp of his own fingertips. That no matter how many times Victor winds his long fingers around Yuri's wrist and cards them in his hair, a pane of something remarkably impenetrable separates them both.

Yuri shakes his head, and lets Victor remain intangible, and does his best not to misinterpret the pull of the blonde's grimace.

-

The act of skating wears at his flesh in ways he's long since become used to, but still when he pulls off his skates to the familiar blisters and blood, Victor still insists on bandaging Yuri's feet. And Yuri lets him, wondering vaguely just how the blonde can remain so patient with his needless squirming.

"You're ticklish," Victor observes after the third kick, and casts a look so innocent towards Yuri that he thinks nothing of it until he is being assaulted by Victor's long fingers, writhing and howling with laughter, pain, pleas to stop already, you devil, you'll stop if you know what's good for you.

He's wound up on the floor beside his bag and skates, and his feet no longer hurt. Victor hovers above him, jaw propped on the heel of his palm.

" _Devil's_ a little unfair, don't you think?" He asks, and his lashes dance with the suggestion. "Regardless of what you might think, I am just as human as you, Yuri."

Yuri smiles so hard he swears his cheeks will be hurting for days afterwards, and his fingers creep up towards Victor's face. They hesitate for a moment before they are touching, sliding around the back of his neck and pressing into his trim jaw.

“I guess you’re right. You feel pretty human to me," he comments, slyly, and has to resist tucking away his hand for how it is absolutely burning with sensation.

Victor's lashes do a funny dance; his mouth opens, and then closes. He is so close, Yuri can taste the peppermint on his breath, can imagine Victor trembling under his touch.

Victor’s eyes close, and Yuri cards his fingers through the back of the boy’s silver hair again; Victor’s weight settles on his stomach, Yuri’s pulse quickens, and the fluorescent light of the rink catches the light strands so that they look like a halo. When Victor’s eyes open again, the blue is darker than usual, an intent heating the meager space between them both.

"What do you want me to be to you, Yuri?" Victor asks again, and Yuri's brain stutters.

"I thought—" Yuri’s mouth dries, he can never think with Victor so close. He swallows and tries again. "I want you to be my coach, Victor. For as long as you can."

Victor blinks, and then nods, and his gaze has turned cold. "Then I'll be that."

The rink door opens and closes, bringing with it the sharp scent of manicured ice, and Victor is on his feet before Yuri can think again, tugging him up, dropping his hand quickly, and securing the belt of his peacoat.

He bandages Yuri's feet without further ado, careful to stray from the sensitive areas.

That night, they sleep alone, and the next too.

-

The smell of liquor is especially strong that evening; Yuri is jetlagged and exhausted and more disoriented than ever as his addled brain tries and fails spectacularly to interpret the Chinese characters on the restaurant menu.

The booth they have rented is small, and mercifully private; therein they've managed to cram six different world-class figure skaters and one pretty if not considerably debauched coach, and if Yuri weren't as tired as he is, he might have noted the way their volume rises incrementally with each drink, each heavy platter of food, each kick aimed at one another's ankles beneath the squat table.

But he's busy looking at Victor, and in the night's earlier hours, whenever he looks, Victor is busy acting the part of the party's very epicentre; the way he leans over the table to confront them with a tease or tell a story has the opened front of his v-neck showing chiseled muscle, and Yuri swallows a little more unsteadily each time. The lights are too bright, the way they glisten off of Victor's skin is almost supernatural. The blonde glows beneath the attention, kept afloat by laughter and the encouragement of the other mens’ straying eyes down the neck of his shirt.

And yet.

The liquor pours, the night wearies. Their friends come and go, and Victor changes.

He's doing that thing where he _fades_ , Yuri thinks. When the eyes are away, when there is nothing but Victor and the liquor in front of him, his gaze hardens, and he seems especially hollow. There's a tension in his jaw; a worried throbbing of a muscle beneath the rough shadow of almost twenty-four hours without shaving. His eyes lid halfway.

At first glance, it's akin to setting oneself in the moon's orbit; watching the side illuminated by the sun, and then the dark side, and back again. At the next, it's almost a relief for Yuri to catch Victor in these quiet moments; that he cannot shine so blindingly forever means that he is only human after all.

Yuri works a hand across the meager space between them. His fingers knot into Victor's.

"You okay?"

Victor jumps; emotion returns to his eyes in a way that has Yuri wondering if it was merely a trick of the light. "Of course, _moy lyubimiy_ ," he returns, with a toothy grin and a fluttering of his lashes, and the way his fingers squeeze just between Yuri's knuckles is almost sinful for the insinuative way it has the latter's heart racing.

Yuri directs his attentions back to the party only to feel the sharp pain of Victor's lithe chin in the tender muscle of his shoulder. Again, he turns to the stink of alcohol on breath and the shock of gray blonde hair caught in the same colored lashes.

"You look beautiful tonight," Victor tells him without even blinking, and Yuri's cheeks ruddy beneath the attention.

"You're drunk, Victor."

The smile Victor affords him turns Yuri's insides to a writhing mess. "Oh, no more than usual."

"Yes, more than usual." Yuri wrenches away the bottle, and bequeaths it upon a passing waitress who takes it, mercifully, without so much as asking permission. "You're a mess, you need to sleep. How are you supposed to coach me tomorrow if you're too hungover to get out of bed?"

"Yuri, Yuri, you forget I'm Russian and don't have the constitution of a thirteen-year-old," Victor teases, a certain singsong quality to his voice that sends feeling down Yuri's spine. Victor's fingers give a gentle squeeze. "So you do care about me after all, mm?”

Yuri favors fishing the soft line of Victor's scarf from the booth cushions over an answer.

Beijing is cold this time of year; shards of ice nip at the exposed parts of their faces as they wish the party's stragglers an easy rest and make their way into the chill. And still, Yuri thinks, hiking up the seam of his neck warmer so that it just covers his nose, it's nothing compared to the frosty way Victor's eyes peer out from the top of his own scarf.

He worries sometimes, and began to worry even more when Yuuko noticed it too, when she pulled Yuri aside and asked if Victor was alright, if there was something wrong, because—she doesn't know, it sound dumb, but it’s because he seems like he's missing something.

And Yuri doesn't know what to say, because how can he? Because how can he dare presume to know anything about the man he's revered for half of his life?

Victor's steps are unsteady against the Beijing pavement; his breaths huff a cloud of vapor that swirls around his nose and catches in his lashes and makes him appear every part the angel Yuri thought he was for so long. But the breaths stink of alcohol, and when Yuri's fingers wrap around his waist hesitantly, Victor leans into the touch a little too enthusiastically. He is havy and solid against Yuri's shoulder.

"Are you okay, Victor?" Yuri asks finally, some blocks further towards their hotel.

Victor laughs; his fingers squeeze, where they've seen to drape themselves about Yuri's shoulder. "Okay? I haven't been able to drink like this in years, I'm more than okay."

"Are you really?"

Perhaps it's the pull of Yuri's brows, but Victor blinks; the lazy mask across his face peels away. There's something tender in his eyes where before there was a drunken haze; framing his mouth, Yuri can see the beginnings of lines that not even Victor's quality moisturizer can combat.

"Don't worry so much, _mamochka_ , you'll get wrinkles," Victor comments, not for the first time as though he can see straight into Yuri's own thoughts, and leans forward to plant a kiss between Yuri's brows. His lips linger, and a part of Yuri, the same part that tries and fails to banish thoughts of Victor at night when he's beneath his covers, squirming and needing a release of the tension he's built up over the day, wants to catch them with his own.

Sometime in the haze of his own thoughts, they have stopped moving; Victor looks at him, and their breaths fog Yuri’s glasses from both sides. His fingers creep up the back of Victor's pea coat until they hitch around the fine, woven shoulders.

They've stopped in an innocuous part of the city; around them, stragglers show them no mind. A gentle rain has started, the promise of a soothing melody with which Yuri will be lulled off to sleep once they return to the hotel. But now, it's just enough to catch on Victor's bangs, to roll down the side of their faces, to drip down Yuri's neck and make him shudder.

Victor is so damn close he can't breathe. Victor is so damn close, Yuri can't look anywhere but his lips. He's seen each inch of the man now, for better or for worse, and still he thinks there's nothing more appealing than their refined curve, the divot in the middle.

Victor's tongue darts out, and Yuri's mind stutters as he wrenches his gaze away. He looks at the street beyond, the light some meters down the block, the opaque sheen of moonlight just barely visible from the obscure layer of clouds, Victor's eyes.

They're dark, and he shivers again. They're dark in the same way they darken when Victor watches him skate to his _Eros_. As his fingers find Yuri after he’s off the ice, as they tighten around his upper arm and his voice lilts around the quick praise, all the while, all the time, acting in an eternal dichotomous dance against his own actions.

Yuri tilts up his jaw, and Victor takes a breath, and the scent of liquor drifts between them, stinging at Yuri’s eyes, pulling him in.

“Yuri,” Victor mumbles, and then again, more insistently, as Yuri’s hungry fingers tighten at his shoulders. “Yuri, what do you want me to be to you?”

Oh.

A white-hot shame ruddies Yuri’s cheeks. His hands slide from Victor’s back, down his waist, to hang limply at his own sides.

Drunk, Victor’s drunk, Victor’s impossibly drunk and when Victor is drunk he would kiss just about anyone, when he gets that vacant look in his eye Yuri knows that the blonde will refuse to sleep alone that night. Yuri has been the victim of Victor’s moods before, in his own bedroom, where Victor’s scrabbling, trembling fingers clutch at Yuri’s chest and he buries his face in Yuri’s back and tells him he’s so, so warm, just how dare he run so warm, anyway?

This is no different.

“You’re my coach, Victor,” he returns, and the words taste bitter on his tongue, and he looks away before he has to see the way Victor’s face breaks.

The rain slides down the bridge of his nose and drips, heavy, into the space between them.

-

In theory, Yuri knows that Russia is cold; that there are cities where for months the sun hardly shines at all, and that now, in the autumn, is when the climate becomes uncomfortable even for the locals. And still, he doesn’t feel cold, not really.

He might say it’s due to the thick down jacket Victor forced him to buy before they left Beijing, one Yuri hates because he’s convinced it makes him look as round as he used to be. Or it could even be from the mittens, hand-knitted, the ones that had Victor smirking as he pulled them over Yuri’s hands just a half-hour prior.

“From your mother, yes?” Victor had asked, the nimble digits of his fur-lined leather gloves prodding at the bulk that was Yuri’s fingers, encased in the begrudging warmth that was his mother’s skill with the needle. “Very caring of her—you’ll keep toasty, and you won’t be at risk of being picked up by pretty Russian boys on your way around the city, either.” 

But Yuri suspects the warmth he feels is due to neither of those things as much as it is the fierce glowing pride in Victor’s eyes every time he turns back, the sheen that shows even from underneath the crop of hair that flops into his sight. Underneath the foggy Russian streetlights, his eyes shine almost as silver as the medal Yuri had just won.

As unforgivably self-aggrandizing as it would be, he kind of wishes he were wearing it now.

“Yuri,” he hears, and glances again into that look, and an unsolicited shiver descends his spine; for Victor’s seemingly manicured appearance, a storm rages just underneath his flesh. This is who Victor is; his exterior is cold, and inside he burns. He is sunlight, he is anger, or he is the wild flickering drive to be _better_ , and Yuri wonders if Victor runs warm enough to keep them both from the Russian chill.

“Yuri,” again, a little more concerned than the last, and Yuri starts. Victor steps closer to him, scarf low enough around his jaw that Yuri is treated to the twist of his lips which means the blonde is worried. “Are you cold, _moy lyubimiy_ _?_ I told you, my city is no joke. We could stop for coffee—“

“No.” Yuri’s gaze hardens behind the thick sheen of his glasses. “I want to see where you live.”

Victor sighs something languid and airy and much too playful to be too begrudging, and he tosses the hair from his eyes, and that fire is back when their gazes clash in the quiet, chilly space between them. “Fine, you absolutely impossible stalker. I will show you, though you’ll be warned it is hardly much of anything.”

They trod on through the busy streets; somewhere between a crosswalk and another, their fingers meet, twisting together through the oppressive mask of Yuri’s mitten.

The streets of Russia slip by, Yuri lingering to take in the sights, and Victor wrenching him forward. Now is not the time to play the tourist, not as the temperature is well into the negatives, and Victor walks forward with determination. It’s not the way Victor flits from place to place as he is sightseeing, too captivated with everything at once to narrow in his focus on anything at a time; his steps are practiced and easy, the abrasive rap from his oxfords make an even staccato against the pavement. He has trodden this route many times before.

They come to a fine building, and are let in by a doorman, who greets Victor enthusiastically in a fluent Russian that the blonde returns. As they chatter, their eyes flit over to Yuri, who lingers behind.

“He says you’re cuter than my usuals,” Victor comments, nonchalant, as the elevator doors close in a smooth sound behind them. Yuri flushes crimson.

He watches Victor as the elevator ascends, the set of his jaw and the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and Yuri wonders just why is it that Victor looks apprehensive to be back at all.

“Is it strange that I’m here?” He asks, before he can talk himself out of it. Victor starts.

“Why would it be strange?”

“Because I’ve never been here before.” Yuri fixes his glasses, and tugs on a lock of bangs, and looks up just in time to see a gentle smile across Victor’s face. “Because maybe it’s weird, two parts of your life meeting, and I shouldn’t be at all.”

“Oh, _Yuri_ ,” Victor cooes, and Yuri is backed against the golden wall of the elevator, Victor’s soft fingertips brushing the line of his jaw, heart hammering in his throat; Victor’s eyes are swimming a deep blue, the same something he looks at him with when he’s drunk, or when he’s cold and Yuri notices and encases him in a jacket, or when he’s doing his whole empty thing and Yuri kneels in front of him, and kisses the tip of every finger on both hands, and asks if they want to go skating or sightseeing or out to eat something sweet to fill them both up. “Yuri, you are my fine student, a silver medalist, god forbid I share a part of myself with you.” He snickers. “Besides, I’ve seen where you have lived, for better or for worse, although I’m afraid I can’t wow you with natural hot springs in my backyard.”

“You don’t have to wow me, Victor.”

Victor leans closer, lips just above Yuri’s nose, and Yuri is reminded vividly of the way they brushed against his own mouth before he hit the ice in Beijing, the shudder of Victor’s fingers as he helped Yuri up from the ice to the flashing of cameras and the wolf whistling of the crowd.

“Of course I have to wow you,” Victor returns, and his fingers are at Yuri’s hip, squeezing a gentle tone into the muscle. “If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have come back here at all.”

Yuri swallows the questions as the elevator door dings and slips open. He follows the halo the fluorescent lighting casts across the back of Victor’s head.

The apartment is fine; it’s decorated minimally, in a way that insinuates that each piece is worth a lot, or else the inhabitant would have had more money left over for a greater number of items with which to fill their space. It’s cold, and it smells stale, unlived in for some time.

Yuri swallows the taste of guilt.

Victor shuts the door behind them and unbuttons his peacoat, draping it over the first hook in a row in the hallway, and turns.

“You can come in,” he says with a hitched brow at Yuri’s doormat loitering.

“Okay.”

It’s clean, and it’s simple, the only indication that it belongs to a world-renowned figure skater is a framed magazine feature of a long-haired Victor’s receipt of a golden medal and a dog bed in a baby blue with stitched figure skates patterning the soft fabric.

“It looks new.”

Victor tosses his head, and smiles fondly at the lump of fabric. “She only used it when I was away. When I was home, she slept in the bed with me, the spoiled thing.”

Yuri nods, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He continues along the wall to the clipping.

In his portrait, Victor is smiling, glowing more brightly than the medal nestled around his neck, and Yuri cannot help but smile back. Victor looked like a lion with his hair long, a fierce mane falling into his eyes and catching in his lashes and the sparkling frills of his outfits as he skated. Yuri’s fingers reach towards the portrait, and stops just before he smears the glass.

“I was good-looking,” comes Victor’s voice from the way of the open kitchen; there is the tinkling of crystal and the sound of a wine bottle being uncorked.

“You still are good-looking.”

When he looks back, the softness in Victor’s eyes astounds him; it pulls him in hook, line, and sinker. He’s drawn towards the open kitchen, towards Victor’s warm presence. Even beneath the meager lights they’ve flicked on, he glows, and Yuri doesn’t dare touch for fear of ruining the illusion, of casting a shadow.

Victor’s fingers busy on the stem of his glass. Within, the deep berry wine absorbs the light.

“I was better back then,” he admits, so low it’s almost a whisper. “I had my skating, but I had a life, too.”

Yuri’s breath catches. “And now you don’t?”

“And now—“ Victor’s shoulders shrug. “And before, too. It ended, much too quickly. I was predictable, I could no longer surprise, my third gold metal and then my fourth and fifth were routine, and still, there was nothing but skating.”

He looks up at Yuri, and his eyes are so very empty it makes Yuri’s skin crawl. “I pushed them all away, my friends, my lovers. I did it for skating, and then even skating began to dismiss me. I came back here, and there was nothing, and it was cold, and it was empty.”

Yuri swallows the ice in his own throat, and he grips the stem of his own glass harder than he should, until he realizes the liquid within is trembling as much as his hands, and lets it go. And suddenly, he hates being the one who brought Victor back here, who made that horrible empty look mar his sculpted features once more.

“Except for Makkachin?” Yuri asks, and does his best to pretend his throat is not as dry as it feels.

Victor’s lashes sweep towards the floor as his eyes lid. “Yes, except for Makkachin.”

His elbows lift from the granite countertop, and he sweeps away. In the distance, there is the sound of unlatching and rattling, and Yuri is left behind with the both of their shed demons.

He has no comparison; he, who was raised in a place of chaos and noise and tourism, and how he used to abhor the noise, escape to the rink and skate or find Minako at her studio and get away from it all. And still, Victor has not once mentioned his own family. And still, Victor had to return to this sad, empty, quiet place every evening, or on his off-seasons.

Yuri examines the well-stocked liquor cabinet.

His name on Victor’s lips call him away from the dark cloud of thought; Yuri circumvents the living area and a fine photograph of a landscape before finding the source. The doors to the patio have been thrown open; he shudders against the chill. Beyond, ice has started to crystalize upon the banisters of the apartment complex next door; tomorrow, the roads will be slick and Russia will be coated in a thin layer of frost.

But Victor is there, and his hand is extended, and he is smiling, and Yuri step forward and into the cold without a second thought.

“Oh—oh _wow.”_

It is a fine view, and his hands clutch upon the railing as Victor’s arms wind around his waist, the steam from their breaths intermingling as they take it in together. He can see the upper reaches of skyscrapers, a park underneath, myriad city lights dancing far underneath them. It’s a city he might have read about in a fairy tale book once, when he was younger and into that sort of thing.

“You like it?”

Victor’s breath is hot at his neck, and Yuri nods, enthusiastically.

“It’s stunning.”

“Mm.” Victor’s arms tighten around Yuri’s stomach. “Now it is.”

Yuri swallows; his fingers trail around the railing, and squeeze the cold metal.

“Yuri,” Victor whispers again, and Yuri is suddenly made all too aware of how Victor’s body fits against his own; the hard planes of muscle, the heat radiating into his own back, the tender squeeze at Yuri’s middle as though Victor is afraid that this here is their last.

“Yeah?”

“Without you—“ Victor’s fingers slide underneath Yuri’s shirt, and trail along his stomach, flat now from the months of intensive training and Victor’s careful eye. “Without you, I would still be stuck here.”

“Is that why you left to train me? Because you wanted to get away?”

“Yes.” Yuri can feel Victor’s lashes against the nape of his neck, lips against the flesh, the same hesitant way Victor kisses him a coach’s good luck before Yuri is back on the ice, and it really is all about to change, isn’t it? “And because you were beautiful, and daring, and I couldn’t stop watching your video. There was a morning when I awoke and knew I had to watch you skate in person.”

Victor’s long fingers work their way around Yuri’s chest, and gently, they turn him, until he is crowded by the warm body on one side and the sheer drop beyond the railing on the other, caught between two great forces, and even in the moments before giving the performance that won him silver at the Grand Prix, his heart was not pounding nearly as hard as it is now.

“ _Moy lyubimiy_ _,”_ Victor calls him again, although Yuri still doesn’t know what it means, and his eyes are longing again. “What do you want me to be to you, Yuri?”

And if _everything_ is too great an answer, then Yuri had best not answer at all. Instead, his toes lift him up to Victor’s height, and he whispers it against the man’s lips instead.

They kiss until the chill between them is banished entirely.


End file.
